Merck has developed an Ebola vaccine with a 100% success rate which has been approved by the FDA.
This is really wonderful news for the planet, especially when you look at the 2014-15 outbreak in West Africa where the death toll exceeded 28,000 people. Viruses with an ability to spread through casual contact in an age of global air travel are nothing to shrug off.
Technically, Ebola is not spread though "casual contact." If we use a CDC definition of the term. But if we use a civilian definition of the term, one might want to argue the point. It's spread through bodily fluids. But then: "If a person sick with Ebola coughs or sneezes, and saliva or mucus touches another person's eyes, nose, mouth, or an open cut or wound, these fluids may spread Ebola." That's pretty darn casual. And it can acquired by touching such fluids on door knobs or other surfaces if one then transfers that inoculant to a mucus membrane such as one's mouth, nose, eyes, etc. That's a pretty common occurrence. Again, sounds pretty casual. Few people on the street or in their office in Kinshasa or anywhere else are going to be wearing gloves and goggles the way scientists going into Ebola zones wisely do. A co-worker's sneeze might mean Ebola transmission. So the word “casual” in “casual contact” when used in relation to Ebola might just be a misleading term used in a sedative phrase intended to quell public panic.
The different strains of Ebola have varied wildly in terms of mortality, with some variants having a mortality rate as high as 90% .
So a vaccine is really great news. It’s a cause for celebration. At least until the next plague says “Surprise!” It’s a never-ending war. Probably long after humans finally stop going to war with other humans, there will still be that microbial war and its many active fronts. The enemy is within. It has been a vital part of our evolution and the evolution of everything else alive.
I've recommended a book on this topic before and I will again today. If you want to read a well-written account of the first time scientists went to war against Ebola, check out Laurie Garrett's nonpareil The Coming Plague (1994). The long chapter "Yambuku" in the book gives a harrowing account of the first Ebola outbreaks, which occurred virtually simultaneously in Zaire and South Sudan (1976) and the international scientific response to them. This book was eerily prescient and forecast much of what was to come with the new millennium. And it's some of the best nonfiction writing you will ever encounter.
This is really wonderful news for the planet, especially when you look at the 2014-15 outbreak in West Africa where the death toll exceeded 28,000 people. Viruses with an ability to spread through casual contact in an age of global air travel are nothing to shrug off.
Technically, Ebola is not spread though "casual contact." If we use a CDC definition of the term. But if we use a civilian definition of the term, one might want to argue the point. It's spread through bodily fluids. But then: "If a person sick with Ebola coughs or sneezes, and saliva or mucus touches another person's eyes, nose, mouth, or an open cut or wound, these fluids may spread Ebola." That's pretty darn casual. And it can acquired by touching such fluids on door knobs or other surfaces if one then transfers that inoculant to a mucus membrane such as one's mouth, nose, eyes, etc. That's a pretty common occurrence. Again, sounds pretty casual. Few people on the street or in their office in Kinshasa or anywhere else are going to be wearing gloves and goggles the way scientists going into Ebola zones wisely do. A co-worker's sneeze might mean Ebola transmission. So the word “casual” in “casual contact” when used in relation to Ebola might just be a misleading term used in a sedative phrase intended to quell public panic.
The different strains of Ebola have varied wildly in terms of mortality, with some variants having a mortality rate as high as 90% .
So a vaccine is really great news. It’s a cause for celebration. At least until the next plague says “Surprise!” It’s a never-ending war. Probably long after humans finally stop going to war with other humans, there will still be that microbial war and its many active fronts. The enemy is within. It has been a vital part of our evolution and the evolution of everything else alive.
I've recommended a book on this topic before and I will again today. If you want to read a well-written account of the first time scientists went to war against Ebola, check out Laurie Garrett's nonpareil The Coming Plague (1994). The long chapter "Yambuku" in the book gives a harrowing account of the first Ebola outbreaks, which occurred virtually simultaneously in Zaire and South Sudan (1976) and the international scientific response to them. This book was eerily prescient and forecast much of what was to come with the new millennium. And it's some of the best nonfiction writing you will ever encounter.
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